


el puente de todos mis poemas

by Lire_Casander



Series: mi mejor casualidad [3]
Category: 9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020)
Genre: Adoption, Angst, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kid Fic, M/M, Mentions of Struggling, Mentions of Veiled Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29428338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander
Summary: strength isn’t shown in how hard they fight back, but in the way they stand up back together after a fall
Relationships: Carlos Reyes/TK Strand
Series: mi mejor casualidad [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2157834
Comments: 6
Kudos: 98
Collections: Tarlos Valentine 2021





	el puente de todos mis poemas

**Author's Note:**

> beta’ed by [meloingly](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/meloingly)
> 
> title from _para ti lo tengo todo_ by antonio orozco. the title roughly translates into _you are the bridge in all my poems_
> 
> written for the [Tarlos Corazonados Weekend 2021](https://tarlos-valentine.tumblr.com/post/641679263079202816/tarlos-corazonados-weekend-2021-we-are-pleased-to), **_day #3: “i told you this ages ago” + love languages + favorite kiss_**
> 
> love languages used: **words of affirmation + love declarations**
> 
> special mention to [meloingly](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/meloingly). without her, i wouldn’t have gotten past the writer’s block that I had run into. she’s the one who held my hand during the writing of this fic, and there’s a line in there that’s all hers! thank you so much for your help and your support!

Ms. González isn’t waiting for them outside of her office when they arrive. Carlos is nervously tapping his feet on the floor while TK walks up to the front desk and asks for her. 

“We have an appointment,” TK is saying in his most polite voice. 

“Ms. González will be here shortly,” the receptionist replies, her calm voice only grating on Carlosʼ nerves. “Please, take a seat while you wait.” 

He doesn’t want to wait. He doesn’t really want to do anything — heʼs been feeling helpless and restless and hopeless ever since they received the call. After a few months without much progress, the adoption agency had finally called them, but it hadn't been to meet them at the boarding school-like center the agency runs in the county — when Carlos had jotted down the address, heʼd realized with painful clarity that they were being summoned to the offices, where no kid ever visited. His hopes at finally being actively in the process of adoption had been crushed. 

No family was ever meant to adopt a kid they never met, and Carlos and TK had yet to do so. He knows it's not normal, for this whole process to take six months once a couple is vetted for adoption. He knows they're not here to meet their future child. 

Theyʼre here to be laid off gently. 

Ms. González joins them a few minutes later, when Carlos is sure heʼs about to bore a hole in the carpet from all the tapping heʼs been doing. “Mr. Reyes-Strand, Mr. Reyes-Strand. Could you please follow me?” 

Carlos doesn’t remember much after the moment when he leans into TK for support. The rest of their meeting vanishes in a blur of grief and disappointment, mostly at himself. His brain barely registers Ms. González explaining that there isn’t any issues with them being a same-sex marriage, but that it's their jobs that pose an obstacle. He barely notices TK retaliating — they had already been a firefighter and a police officer when they applied to this program, and they didn’t seem to have trouble with that. 

Carlos just wants to go home and cry himself to sleep for the rest of his life. 

It doesn’t hit him fully until heʼs pulling up the car next to their building. Carlos has driven on autopilot — he doesn’t remember the ride back home — and he hasnʼt listened to a single word TK has said. 

Theyʼre not going to be parents, not this way, not through adoption. Ms. González has been crystal clear on that — they were supposed to rethink about their career choices and come to the conclusion that _at least_ one of them should switch to a less dangerous job in order for them to be able to take care of a child. Carlos would never ask TK for such a sacrifice, and TK has made it clear that Carlos can't give up on his dream of following into his fatherʼs steps. 

Theyʼre stuck in a vicious cycle, and thereʼs no way to break it without their lives being torn down like a house of cards. 

TK helps him out of the car. Carlos is walking blindly, seeing TKʼs key dangling off his fingers and listening to his husband fumbling with the lock. He isn’t sure how he ends up on the couch, still in his nicest shirt but barefoot, with TK sitting in front of him atop the coffee table. 

“Hey, Carlos,” he's saying, his big green eyes full of worry. “You with me?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Carlos swallows around the lump that's taken his throat hostage. “Iʼm sorry. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have picked up all those shifts these past months, and I really shouldn’t be considering the promotion I was offered last week.” There’s despair in his voice. “I keep running into danger and that's what's kept us from making it into the final list.” 

“You know that's not true,” TK says in a soothing voice that engulfs Carlos in warmth. “I could say the same, but I won’t. You and I both have dangerous jobs that we love, and the agency knew that when we first applied. I think they’re just backtracking now and it was an excuse.” 

“I can't help feeling guilty about it,” Carlos mutters. 

“You once said that if it wasn't meant to be, it wasn't meant to be,” TK tells him slowly. “We will find a way. We always do.” 

He stares at his husband with eyes wide, completely awestruck. 

“What?” TK stares at him with bewilderment. 

“I told you this ages ago,” Carlos whispers, awed and completely taken aback. Even after so many years together, his husband can still surprise him. “I wasn't expecting you to—” 

“Listen?” TK provides, interrupting him unceremoniously. 

“—remember,” Carlos finishes, frowning at him. “It was well at the beginning of our relationship, TK. Like, we weren't even _official_ back then.” 

“I should feel offended that you don't think I listen to you,” TK huffs out. “But the truth is, Carlos, that I have _always_ listened to you. You know everything about me because I never shut up, but you don't talk as much as I do. Thatʼs why I need to pay attention, because whenever you speak, I know it will be worth listening to.” 

TK kneels in front of him, his stance so eerily similar to that one from so long ago, when Carlos had finally allowed all his defences to crumble down in front of TK — hoping that seeing him as the flawed human being he is wouldn’t make TK flee. 

He hadn’t. 

And Carlos believes he wonʼt, now. 

“This is just another bump in the road,” TK whispers, holding Carlosʼ hands in his. “It’s nobodyʼs fault, Carlos. Let's not dwell on the bad things now. Weʼre good, weʼre together, and we will power through this, like we always do.” 

Carlos can't help the wet laugh that escapes his throat. He is unable to envision a world where they can survive _this_. “You can't possibly know that.” 

“You’re right, I can't tell the future,” TK acquiesces. “I can't anticipate what's going to happen tomorrow. But I know that I will be here, fighting _for_ you, and for _us_. And until you're ready to fight along, I will hold the fort for both of us.” 

Carlos blinks away the tears that have been pooling in his eyes. “What if I’m never ready?” he mumbles, soul crushed under the weight of his own guilt.

TK chuckles humorlessly, still holding his hands. Carlos knows what he’s about to say, he’s heard it before, but he still remains silent as TK sighs. “Nothing ever stays the same, Carlos.”

“You were right the first time around,” Carlos tells him, voice still low, eyes still trained to their intertwined hands. “I just need to start believing you’re right, now.”

“Oh, better start _now_ ,” TK says, squeezing his hands. “Because you know I’m always right when it comes to us. We’ll get through this. I know you don’t want to hear a thing about it right now, and I will respect that, but when you’re ready, we will find a solution. I’m not giving up on _this_ , on us extending our family. And I’m not letting you give up either.”

Carlos nods again, unable to speak. He leans into TK’s touch, and his husband is there to catch him when he finally breaks, crying his heart out as TK holds him. It’s his turn to be comforted, and despite the fact that Carlos has always been the caretaker in this relationship, he knows TK cares just as deeply as he does — if not deeper. So he allows his husband to pick up the pieces of his broken heart and glue them together with golden lines of kisses and caresses, until Carlos doesn’t see the cracks anymore.

It takes them so long to go back into being themselves — so much work on TK’s part to catch Carlos whenever he fades into his own darkness, so much effort on Carlos’ side to help TK overcome his own fears when it comes to how he faces the dangers of his job knowing that it was crucial in ruling them out of adopting. It takes them _years_ to come back to the way they used to be — to get rid of the long shadow of self-doubt and fear — but they finally reach the finish line of the race they both call _life_.

And when they’re there, finally happy in their own skins and ready to fight back — because TK was right, Carlos thinks, they were always going to be ready — they do more research, prepare themselves for the process, and start anew with a different agency. One that isn’t homophobic, one that doesn’t hide prejudice, claiming that first responders are not suited for adoption.

It’s so hard, at first. Carlos feels like he’s walking on eggshells the whole time — the interviews, the gatherings where the social assistant would tear them down to pieces to make sure they’re not crazy — but he doesn’t give up. TK holds him the whole time; he holds his hand when they get rejected for the fourth time in a row, he squeezes him tight when he cries himself to sleep at night, he hides his own pain just to stop adding more weight to Carlos’ already heavy heart.

Carlos would have liked for the whole ordeal to have been lighter, or shorter, but in the end, he knows he wouldn’t have traded anything they went through for an easier time — because in that case, they wouldn’t be in this moment, right here in their living room, with plush toys and two miniature police car and even a miniature fire truck sticking out from underneath the couch, while their three-year-old son makes _vroom vroom vroom_ noises from his spot on the carpet at his feet.

“Papa,” Adrian calls, looking up at him with his big brown eyes. “Up?” He’s making grabby hands at him, and Carlos has never been able to deny him anything, not since they came back home from Mexico with him, two years, nine months, one week and six days ago — but he isn’t really counting.

He obliges, picking Adrian up from the floor and settling him on his lap. He takes the chance to drop a kiss on the crown of Adrian’s head — it’s probably the kisses Carlos loves to give the most, and the kisses Adrian and TK love to receive the most. If Carlos didn’t know better, he’d think Adrian takes after the both of them — his olive skin and curls from his own side of the family; his cheeky attitude, wit and general adorable air from TK’s. 

Carlos will forever deny it, but Adrian has always had him wrapped around his little finger, ever since they flew all the way to Mejores Familias to meet their new son and ended up flying back home with more than they first thought they would.

Again, he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

The toddler leans into Carlos’ chest, one hand around his neck, fingers tangling in the curls on the lower part of his nape. TK has already told him he needs a haircut, but Carlos would much rather go back home from one of his long shifts straight to his family instead of wasting time at a barber’s. Maybe he should call Tía Lucy and ask her to come on Sunday — maybe she could cut his hair just like she used to do when he was a child himself.

“I can hear you thinking all the way from here!” TK calls out from the kitchen, where Carlos knows better than to set foot when his husband is working on some sweet treat with Leticia, their thirteen-year-old daughter and Adrian’s biological older sister. He’s been scalded one too many times throughout the years.

“I wasn’t _thinking_!” he huffs in reply, his nose buried deep in the curls that cover Adrian’s head. He loves the smell of the new shampoo they’re using now — it reminds him of his own childhood, of memories he’s treasured through the years. Until he became a father, Carlos hadn’t even thought that memories could have a smell.

Now he knows better — now he knows that love can be experienced through all his senses.

“Sure, babe,” comes the witty reply. Carlos can picture the smirk on TK’s face as he moves around the kitchen. He’s about to retaliate with something snarky of his own when Adrian looks up at him with an amazed glint in his eyes.

“Papa, you hair like me,” he babbles, one fist already lifting to his mouth so he can try and chew on it, and it’s all Carlos can do _not_ to melt.

“Yes, Adrian,” he mumbles, allowing his son to thread his other hand through his hair, trying not to wince when Adrian tangles his chubby fingers in the curls and pulls. “We have the same hair.”

“That becos you papa?” Adrian mumbles. Carlos’s ears are already trained to understand his son’s broken speech — he’s barely three — so he nods, eyes suddenly wet with unshed tears.

“Yes, sweetie,” he replies, coddling Adrian and peppering kisses on his little face. “That’s because I am your papa and you are my son.”

“I love you, Papa,” Adrian mutters sleepily. Carlos checks the clock on the opposite wall — it’s almost time to go to bed for him. “I love you and Dad and Leti.”

“I love you too, buddy,” he whispers back, rocking him slightly back and forth. “We all love you so much.”

There will be time, when Adrian grows up a little, to explain the whole situation — the fear and the pain and the struggle, but also the willingness to become parents and the love that broke through every obstacle and the hope ingrained in his brain after that first setback — but for now, Carlos is content with hugging his son while they sit on the couch, TK tinkering around the kitchen with their daughter, who’s _actually_ able to bake cakes without burning everything down.

They’ve always been a family, just the two of them — TK and Carlos against the world, ever since the beginning — but now they’re more. 

Now they’re everything.

**Author's Note:**

> fun facts about writing this fic!
> 
> * [Mejores Familias](http://www.mejoresfamilias.com.mx/) does exist, and it’s a Mexican Civil Association that helps kids find a family


End file.
